v6.4.8 Release Notes - 19th January 2024

Feature Updates

Care Plan

Care Plans have been updated so that a Person may have multiple concurrent Care Plans, each linked to a single Activity of Daily Living (ADL). The Care Plan function has been simplified to allow full details of the Person's current needs related to that ADL, their desired outcomes, and any actions that may be taken to achieve those outcomes, to be captured in a single form.

A number of functions have been updated as a result of this change:

• The previous Care Plan status of Draft has been changed to Not Authorised. A Person may now have multiple Care Plans in a status of either Authorised or Not Authorised. Regular Care can be created and scheduled for Care Plans with either status.
• The Details tab under Care Plan on the Person record has been updated alongside the changes to the Care Plans. Individual Care Plans are now displayed in the left column, with detail of the Person's current situation and needs relating to the ADL as indicated. When a Care Plan from the left column is selected, the desired outcomes in the Care Plan will show in the middle column, and the actions in the right column.
• The Copy Care Plan function has been updated to include the relevant fields from the simplified Care Plan format.
• Ending or removing a Care Plan will now deactivate any Regular Care records and cancel any incomplete assessments that are associated with that Care Plan.
• Care Plan Forms (Assessments) have been updated to enable the update of needs, outcomes, and actions of the associated Care Plan from the Care Plan Form (Assessment) directly.
• In Person > Care Status, the Next Care Plan Review Date will consider the nearest future Next Review Date of all active Care Plans.

Further information about Care Plans can be found in the articles Care Planning and Recording and Recording a Care Plan.

Regular Care

The types of care available in Regular Care are now determined by the Mode of Care Delivery in Care Provider Settings.

• When the Mode of Care Delivery is set to “Residential”, the care types available to select as Regular Care will be those where the Reference Data record has the following settings: Include for Regular Care = "Yes" and Include for Residential = "Yes".
• When the Mode of Care Delivery is set to “Domiciliary”, the care types available to select as Regular Care will be those where the Reference Data record has the following settings: Include for Regular Care = "Yes"

Daily Care

The field Linked Care Need has been removed from all Daily Care records. Daily Care records may be linked to multiple Activities of Daily Living (ADL), which enables Daily Care to be matched to Care Plans with the same ADL for dashboard visibility and reporting.

Height & Weight Observations

An issue resulting in records being deactivated regularly has been fixed. Created records now remain active until manually deactivated or deleted.

Personal Safety and Environment

The automatically-generated Care Note for the Personal Safety and Environment daily care record has been updated to improve readability and consistency across web and mobile platforms.

New Summary Screen for Care Plan Creation , Management and Review

A new summary screen has been added for the creating , management and review of Care Plans. The screen can be found in Person > Care Plan:

The following features can be used from this screen:

The 'Plus' button adds a new part/section to the Care Plan (these are Categorised by Activity of Daily Living.

The 'Print' icon opens a Mail Merge feature which allows the user to export the Care Plan (and other related information) to a MS Word or PDF file:

As each section of the Care Plan is expanded there are then options to open the record to see/edit all fields or to edit in line (so the user can quickly edit the words they can currently see on screen):

New Care Plan Mail Merge

A new Care Plan Template has been added to the Product named 'Care Plan - Combined Care' which lets the user export a Peron(s) Care Plan and other key information into a pre defined Ms Word or PDF file.

It can be accessed via the Care Plan widget as described above and also on screens where the People are listed and the Mail Merge icon appears at the top of the screen , as per the example below:

New 'Draw View' for Edit Records

A new draw view has been enabled for a number of key Person records so that editing of records can be done via a draw on the right of the screen , while still keeping the previous screen in the background. This change may be rolled out to other areas of the system in the future based on user feedback.

Mobile App

Handover Comments

Where relevant, Daily Care records can be flagged for handover via the mobile app and a Handover Comment can be entered. This comment is then available from the Resident Dashboard (or Home) screen, and from the Resident Details screen.

Resident Dashboard -> Handovers displays all comments for Residents at the selected Provider.

Resident Details -> Handover Notes displays all comments for the selected Resident.

The length of time Handover Comments appear in the mobile app can be configured in Care Provider Settings. More information on configuring the mobile app can be found in the article Configuring the Care Cloud Mobile App.

View Care Plan

A Person's Care Plan can now be viewed in the mobile app. After selecting a Resident from the dashboard, select 'View Care Plan' under 'Resident Information' to view the active Care Plans. Each Care Plan can be selected to view more information regarding the current situation and need, desired outcomes, and actions.

View All Risks

When a Resident has been selected, a new option to 'View All Risks' is available in the Resident Information section. This will display those risks identified as key risks, as well as additional risks, diagnoses, or important information relevant to that Person. Each section may be expanded or collapsed to view the details.

Resident Voice

Files added to daily care records via the Resident Voice feature are now being processed in mobile to reduce file size in the main application. The processing time will be longer for larger files. It's possible to continue to enter data into the daily record while the file is being processed, but the daily care record cannot be saved until this has been completed.

Images added to the Daily Care record may now be previewed before saving the record.

Daily Care Recording

New care types are now available to record daily care via the mobile app:

• Away From Home

• Diary Event

• Conversations

• Keyworker Notes

  

Wallchart Enhancements

Sticky Time Row

The time row is now sticky to the screen allowing users to scroll down on wallcharts always displaying the time.

Double Booking Rows

It it now possible to configure the row height of the bookings on wallcharts to display two rows. The new attribute Booking Row Height is available in the Wallchart section in Settings > Care Provider Setup > Scheduling Setup. Enter "2" to set the double booking row height, otherwise the default the row height is one.

Double Booking Row Height

Setting double row height for bookings makes each booking larger on the wallchart as well as providing more space to display individual booking details.

Single Booking Row Height

Configurable Booking Labels

Previously, only the Booking Type label was displayed on the wallchart for all bookings regardless of Booking Type Class. From version 6.4.8 it is now possible to configure up to three booking labels per Booking Type Class for each wallchart screen.

Depending on the Booking Type Class and individual screen it is now possible to customise the booking labels displayed so the most pertinant labels are displayed without the need to select individual bookings or scrolling for the tooltip.

Note: the fraction representing the 'number of staff allocated' / 'number of staff required' displayed on the right of the booking, is not impacted by the booking labels.

The five booking labels available for configuration are listed. For each booking label there are specific design considerations to provide as much information as possible, remove duplication of information, as well as the importance of the information. Specific behaviours per booking label are stated.

• Booking Type
• Sub-location
  • Sub-location is an optional booking attribute and may not be populated. When the label does not exist, it will not display in the booking even if configured.
• Staff (assigned to the booking)
  • In the case of double-ups where more than one staff are assigned to a booking, the booking label will display the staff Surname, Initial suffixed with an '+ X'. 'X' represents the remaining number of staff not listed in the label.
  • For partially and fully unallocated bookings, the Staff label will display 'Unassigned' rather than a staff name. For Care Coordinators, it is clearly displays management of this booking is required.

    

  

• Person (assigned to the booking)
  • In the case of double-ups where more than one person is assigned to a booking, the booking label will display the person Surname, Initial suffixed with an '+ X'. 'X' represents the remaining number of people not listed in the label.
• Provider

The global configuration for each Booking Type Class and wallchart screen is described below.

Provider Diary

Provider Schedule

People Diary

People Schedule

Employee Diary and Employee Schedule

Person Diary and Person Schedule

Settings > Care Provider Setup > Booking Label Conigurations

Although there are recommended global configuration for each Booking Type Class and wallchart it is also possible to configure this locally for the system. Within Settings > Care Provider Setup > Booking Label Conifgurations a user can specify their own booking labels.

To add local system configuration, add a new record and specify the screen and Booking Type Class you would like to configure. The only field that is mandatory is Label 1. All other fields are optional and are used to define what level the configuration record will be applied. For example, if Label 1 is set to 'Booking Type' all bookings regardless of screen and Booking Type Class would use this configuration and display Booking Type on the bookings.

Having this flexiblity allows the user to only add configuration records at the level necessary and the system will use this precedence to apply it to all bookings based on what is defined.

The labels available have been limited to a maximum of three preventing overcrowding of information on the wallcharts, while balancing more information at a glance.

The labels are responsive based on the width of the booking on screen, therefore the booking labels will dispay based on the priority order. It is therefore important to configure the labels in order of importance.

BO = Provider

Once a Provider has been selected, Under Menu / Charging, a new option called “Finance Invoice Payments” is available.

There are 2 System Views available which replicate the System Views available under the Finance Invoice Payment Listing (Workplace / Finance).

They will show Finance Invoice Payment records that have been recorded (just for that Establishment) in order to be allocated as payments across multiple Finance Invoices (i.e. Total Record?= Yes)

System View

• Total Records (Allocated) (Allocated? = Yes)
• Total Records (Unallocated) (Unallocated? = No)

This supplements the work carried out for Bulk Allocation of Finance Invoice Payments, released in 6.4.7

BO = Person Contract Services

Previously the Charge Per Week figure was not calculated (and updated) until the PCS had a Status = Completed.  The change is so that as soon as the PCS records is created, once a Contract Service is automatically associated, the Charge Per Week is automatically calculated.

This supplements the work for Overriding rates released in 6.4.6.  It enables a User to see what the Weekly charge would be prior to making a decision as to whether to override the Fixed rate recorded against the Contract Service record, but it also allows a User to see for any PCS, what the Charge will be prior to the PCS being Authorised for charging (changing Status = Completed)

Banded Rates

This functionality enables a User to creates rates for Hourly services that are banded and therefore not pro rata to an hourly rate and was released in 6.3.2, e.g.

• Band 1 from 0 to 15 minutes = £8.50
• Band 2 from 16 to 30 minutes = £12.00
• Band 3 from 31 to 45 minutes = £15.00
• Band 4 from 46 to 60 minutes = £18.00
• etc. etc.

An enhancement has been made to allows Users to specify if they want to continue charging at a pro rata rate, rather than recording numerous additional bands.

To do this a new field called “Continue as Pro Rata?” is available within BO = Contract Service Banded Rates [Accessed: <Person Contract Service> / <Tab = Contract Service Rate Period> / <Tab = Contract Service Banded Rates>] .  It can only be set against the final/last record (i.e. the one with the highest “Visit Length From” value)

• Band 1 Visit length From 0 To 15 minutes = £8.50
• Band 2 Visit Length From 16 To 30 minutes = £12.00
• Band 3 Visit Length From 31 To 45 minutes = £15.00
• Band 4 Visit Length From 46 To 60 minutes = £18.00
• Band 5 Visit length From 61 minutes To highest value = £18.00

Therefore for Band 5, where Continue as Pro Rata?

• = No, no matter how long the visit was from 61 minutes onwards, only £18.00 would be charged
• = Yes, the charge would change based on length of visit e.g. 120 minutes = (£18 / 60) * 120 = £36

The Band Rate recorded for the record where Continue as Pro Rata? = Yes, is always an hourly rate.  Therefore if you had banded rates up to 90 minutes and thereafter it was pro rata, then this is how you may record it

• Band 1 Visit length From 0 To 15 minutes = £8.50
• Band 2 Visit Length From 16 To 30 minutes = £12.00
• Band 3 Visit Length From 31 To 45 minutes = £15.00
• Band 4 Visit Length From 46 To 60 minutes = £18.00
• Band 5 Visit length From 61 minutes To 90 minutes = £25.00
• Band 6 Visit length From 91 minutes To highest value = £20.00

Charge would be

• Anything between 61 to 90 minutes = £25.00
• 100 minutes = (£20 / 60) * 100 = £33.33

A further change was made, for clarity, by revising label names of fields as follows:

• Visit Length From (from Time From)
• Visit Length To (from Time To)

Charging using Average Months

The system will allow charges to be based on an Average Month calculation and the same charge is applied regardless of how many days are in the calendar month.

The full functionality of generating Finance Transactions using this new functionality will not be available until 6.4.9 release, but within this release, there have been a few setup changes to some Business Objects: Rate Unit; Finance Invoice Batch Setup.

These will be explained fully in the 6.4.9 Release notes.

Charging for One-Offs

The system has the ability to charge for one-offs, outside of creating either Ad-Hoc Expense records or Sundry Expense records.

This can be done by creating a Person Contract Service record where:

• Use a Rate Unit, where in its setup, it has “One-Off?” = Yes
• Frequency = 1 (defaults and can not be changed)
• End date/Time (mandatory to record)

The Start and End Date do NOT have to be the same date.  This is so that a period can be recorded, to indicate the one-off charge applied to a number of days.  The system will only generate one Finance Transaction to charge.

BO = Finance Invoice (Debtor Reference Numbers)

Currently when creating a Finance Invoice Batch Setup record, you can identify whether it is mandatory to have a Debtor Reference Number recorded against a Payer, before Finance Invoices can be authorised for charging (changing Status = Completed).

However if the Finance Invoice has already been created and the Debtor Reference number had not been recorded, the system was not able to update it from Null (or change it to a new value).  This omission has been rectified and therefore if a value in Debtor Reference Number is recorded (or changed) against a Payer, then any Finance Invoices that use that Payer (where Status is NOT equal to: Completed; Cancelled), will be automatically updated.

Emailing Finance Invoices

Current functionality assumes that the Sender of the Email will be “Service Account”.

A change has been made to make the Sender configurable.  To this end, a new field called “Email Sender” has been added on BO = Finance Extract Batch Setup” [Settings / Configuration / Finance Admin / Care provider Invoicing].  All Finance Invoices emailed from a Finance Extract Batch that is associated to this Finance Extract Batch Setup record, will use that value as the sender.  This field will be mandatory when “Generate and Email Invoices Automatically” = Yes, but it is recommended that this value is always completed because you may wish to email manually (i.e. instead of using the automated functionality based on the Finance Invoices being extracted for charging.

The Sender to be selected will be selected from the BO = Teams (recommended) or BO = System User.  Ensure that there is an email address recorded or an email activity will fail as an email activity will not be created.

• BO = Teams, in “Email Address”
• BO = System User, in “Work Email”

You will have a choice to record the same “Email Sender” on all Finance Extract Batch Setup records, or record a different a one.  The value can be updated at anytime and the new value applied to the next set of Finance Invoices emailed.

Bulk Allocation of Finance Invoice Payments

This functionality was added in release 6.4.8.  However, new functionality is being added in this release to create Direct Debit extracts.

Therefore, Finance Invoices that have Payers that are due to be pay their charges via Direct Debit, will have a new field “Direct Debit?” = Yes.

This change means when Finance Invoices are being searched to see what Finance Invoices the Total Payment should be allocated against, a new search criteria has been added as follows:

• Establishment
• Payer
• Contract Scheme
• Completed on (FEB – Finance Extract Batch)
• Direct Debit? [NEW]

Generic Debtor (Charging) Extract

A change has been made to enable minus signs for values to be removed from the Extract file.  A separate field (already available) identifies if the Value is a Debit i.e. D (positive value to charge) or Credit i.e. C (negative value to repay).

This is controlled via a System setting called “RemoveNegativeSignFromExtractBatchFile” [Settings / Configuration / System Management / System Settings]

• “true” = Minus signs will not show
• any value that is not “true” = Minus signs will show (default value = “false”)

A second change is the Debtor Extract includes data for Finance Transactions in fields Total Units and Chargeable Units.  This is currently only completed when Finance Transactions are generated from Diary Bookings (Scheduled Care). To ensure data is always included in these fields for all Services (i.e. to include Finance Transactions generated from Person Contract Services), then Total Units and Chargeable Units will default to 1 on the Finance Transaction and therefore will be output with 1 on the Debtor Extract.

Usability

Some small changes have been made to make the User experience a little bit easier

BO = Finance Invoice Batch Setups [Settings / Configuration / Finance Admin / Care Provider Invoicing]

When a record is selected, a new tab = Finance Invoice Batches, which enables the User to view all those records created under the Setup record

BO = Finance Extract Batch Setups [Settings / Configuration / Finance Admin / Care Provider Invoicing]

When a record is selected, a new tab = Finance Extract Batches, which enables the User to view all those records created under the Setup record

Direct Debits

There have been changes to Person, Finance Extract Batch Setups/Batches and Finance Invoices to create a Direct Debit Extract File.

BO: Person

Changes to fields available when Pays by Direct Debit = Yes

• Transaction Type – options (not customisable):
  • New Transaction
  • Repeating Transaction
  • Final Transaction
• Has Fixed Payment Amount? = Yes
  • Fixed Payment Amount £
  • Used to determine amount to be paid in Direct Debit Collection process

BO: Finance Invoices

New read only flag: Pays by Direct Debit

Flag is set by the Pays by Direct Debit flag on the invoice Payers record.

BO: Finance Extract Batch Setups

Change to layout and extract type will hide fields not relevant for a Direct Debit Finance Extract Batch

Extract Type = Direct Debit

Hide Invoice Settings

Hide Extract Reference

Hide VAL GL Code

• New Extract Frequency: Monthly Set Date
  • Lock Day of the Week selections
  • Uses start date as set date cycle

BO: Finance Extract Batches

New read only flag - Direct Debit Batch?, when extract type = Direct Debit (Code 99) flag updated to Yes. When extract type = Generic Extract (Code 1) flag updated to No.

When Ad Hoc Batch? = Yes then Direct Debit Batch? = No, Ad Hoc Batch cannot be created.

Direct Debit Extract Batches have Finance Invoice details tab and no Finance Transactions tab.

Completion Details controlled by extract type, no change to Finance Extract Batches when the extract type = Generic Extract. When extract type = Direct Debit then Completion Details section changes:

Extract Content for Direct Debit Extracts:

• Sort Code
• Account name
• Account number
• Amount to be collected
• AUDDIS Ref
• Transaction Code

Contract Type

New Contract Type options available in System User Employment Contracts

• Salaried
• Hourly
• Volunteer
• Contracted - Fixed
  • Requires a Fixed Working Pattern that cannot change and has set day/time for shifts
• Contracted - Variable
  • Requires a Fixed Working Pattern that can change and has set day/daily hours for shifts

The new Contracted Fixed/Variable values replace the existing Contracted value. Both new contract types require a Fixed Working Pattern.

BO: System User Employment Contract

New field: Fixed Working Pattern Cycle

Controls the minimum number of Fixed Working Pattern Timetable records required to approve a Fixed Working Pattern. Once a Fixed Working Pattern is approved the Contracted Hours per Week and Fixed Working Pattern Cycle fields become read only.

Fixed Working Patterns

When contract type = Contracted - Fixed:

An open Fixed Working Pattern is required. The Working Pattern Timetable requires at least 1 record per week cycle set on the System User Employment Contract and requires the Pattern Cycle, Start Day, Start Time, End Day and End Time to be recorded for each shift in the weekly cycle. Multiple shifts per day can be recorded but shift times cannot overlap. Once Confirmation Status = Approved then the Fixed Working Pattern cannot be amended. The record can be made inactive, this will then require a new Fixed Working Pattern to be input and Approved.

When contract type = Contracted - Variable:

An open Fixed Working Pattern is required. The Working Pattern Timetable requires at least 1 record per week cycle set on the System User Employment Contract and requires the Pattern Cycle, Start Day and Daily Contracted Hours to be recorded for each shift in the weekly cycle.

Fixed Working Pattern Export

Once a Fixed Working Pattern is Approved the Fixed Working Pattern Schedule can be exported into excel. The Start Date and End Date search criteria must fall within the System User Employment Contract Start and End dates. There is a limit of 365 days on the search date criteria to produce the export file. The Schedule will be created to view on screen and can then be exported into excel if required:

Payroll Codes

BO: Payroll Codes

New Fields: Staff Employment Contract(s)

• Multi select field

Flag to Apply to All Staff Employment Contract(s):

• = Yes Staff Employment Contract(s) field is inactive
• = No Staff Employment Contract(s) field is editable

Staff Employment Contract(s) field can be used to assign different payroll codes to an individual with multiple contracts.

Defects Resolved